σκύβαλον

From the study of Philippians 3:8

Range of meaning

Refuse or waste that is thrown away as useless or disgusting. Greek writers use it for:

• food scraps and leftovers from a meal, the bones and bits swept out or thrown to dogs;
• husks or refuse left after sifting grain;
• excrement, in medical and other writers.

Ancient lexicographers explained it either as from es kynas ballein ('to throw to the dogs') or as linked to skōr ('dung'). Both are folk explanations, but they show how the word sounded: something filthy, fit only for the dogs or the dunghill.

Against the English

KJV 'dung' (following the Vulgate's stercora) keeps the disgust but narrows the word to excrement. Modern 'rubbish,' 'garbage' and 'refuse' keep the 'throw it out' sense but often sound milder and more polite than Paul's word. NLT/NIV 'garbage' is closest in register. Each English word captures only part of the range.

How it drifted

English 'rubbish' has become a mild word ('that's rubbish'), so the visceral edge is lost. Some modern popularizers go the other way and claim Paul used a crude obscenity. The evidence shows a strong, repellent word, but not clearly a vulgar swear word.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Greek Old Testament it appears only at Sirach 27:4: 'when a sieve is shaken, the refuse (skybala) remains,' an image for a person's faults showing in his speech. In wider Greek it is used of table scraps and of excrement (see TDNT s.v. σκύβαλον). This verse is its only New Testament occurrence.